Tuesday, January 30, 2018

I have been contemplating Seth these past few days. Someone asked me today if this was a hard day for me, and I had to tell her that it is not. Seth inspired me: his art, his life, his life as art. Seth refused fear. Almost everyone has fears that run a greater or lesser portion of their lives: fear of what other people think; fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of abandonment, fear of pain and suffering, fear of not being loved; name your own... Seth was not naturally fearless, but he consciously refused to make decisions based on fear. In some cases his decision to face down his fear added up to recklessness. It is OK, for example to be afraid to walk on the edge of a rooftop at night in the rain without your glasses.
But he said that the one thing he did not want to say at the end of his life was, "I have missed out on opportunities because of fears."

Seth did not make his art to please other people, and sometimes it didn't. When he was drawing an iconic figure such as Batman, he drew some images that outraged some fans.

Most especially this one...

...and this one

And some of the things he drew did not make it into the book: the editors took them out:

the little cartoony Batman and Alfred,
as well as the bunny on Alfred's head

Bats and butterflies

skulls with haloes circling about the head
of the deceased

For an artist, or anyone trying to live a life that has meaning, I believe it is essential to recognize the ways that we have kowtowed to people whose values we do not respect, to break away from that, and instead live our life, do our job, according to the brightest light that we see.
I may not have agreed with all of Seth's lights, but the fact that he followed them, and NOT his fears, NOT what Other People wanted is something that is in itself a light to me.

May something of that spirit be a guide to all of the people who love him, and who love him through his art.

Monday, August 7, 2017

I am just about to take all my Batman pages to Seth's brother Asa who will curate and keep them in a much better way than I could do here. I am glad for Asa to be in charge, but I will miss being able to thumb through them from time to time. However, others of Seth's family pass through Asa's studio more often than they do here, so it's better for everyone.

But as I was getting pages out to pack them up, I happened upon this one. Not an exciting page, one that in opera would be called a "recitativo"--a passageway from one incident to another. But in Seth's oeuvre there are no throwaway images.

As an artist I have to confess that I hate perspective. That is, I admire it, but I heartily dislike making all the little measurements that would make perspective true enough to make the picture come alive. I don't mess with it if I can avoid it. Seth refused such squeamishness. When he had a room to draw, he put all the objects in the room in correct size and from the correct angle. And the ceilings! Sometime I would like to do a study of ceilings in Seth's work. They are endlessly interesting, as they elaborate upon the kind of room where the action is taking place. The ceiling in this room is parquet--as befits a dining room in Bruce Wayne's mansion--and we see it from two different vantage points (and almost a third one in the top left panel). We see this room from one side, and then from the other. Everything has been imagined: the kitchen from which Albert emerges with food, the breakfast table with much left uneaten, the two windows with their drapes, the buffet with its plate racks, lovely floors, and--because Seth is the artist--framed portraits on the walls of people with funny egg-like heads. And a bunny that follows Albert wherever he goes in Seth's Batman world--the bunny got edited out from the official ones.

In any case it's a lovely page where not much is happening, but the ambience is the star.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Twenty years ago--1997--Seth's third and last year of being the JET Program English teacher at the high schools in Oki Islands in Japan, he decided to make t-shirts to sell as a fundraiser. I think he was raising funds for a two week summer program they did every year for students who wanted to raise their English language skills up to another level.
The images I am posting here are his roughs for that project, working up to the actual image. (Unfortunately I don't have an actual one of these T-shirts anymore.) He sent me the image, and I did the color separation and found a printer to print the shirts for him here in San Diego. He picked them up when he came home during the summer, and took them back with him to Oki.
Summer at Japanese schools are not the time between grade levels. Since the school year starts in April, summers are just time off for students and teachers while it is TOO hot to study.

Clearly this is a very preliminary drawing.

He had the idea of doing a pretty Japanese
girl in full dress, and was working out how
to make his mind's image effective.

This rough sketch shows that he originally
had the idea of giving her a mask; maybe
her exterior was more refined than her real
person (note the red nose).

This is his roughly inked rendition of the image he ended

up using.

The final image.

The final image in color. I think I painted this one, according to his specifications,

just to make sure the colors were right before I had 500 of them silkscreened.

Friday, February 3, 2017

I am late posting this. On January 30th (Monday) I was up at the abbey where Seth is buried. It is quiet, clear, and chilly there in the wintertime. I didn't have a camera with me, so I don't have any photos from that visit, but I suspect that whatever readers visit this blog would rather see his work than his grave anyway.

BATMAN SNOW issue 196 page 10

So I thought it might be nice to post a page of his work that I hadn't posted before.

It is, of course, one of the more thrilling pages in his whole oeuvre. All the lines in the page are angular, diagonal, showing fast, brittle movement, like ice cracking. Even the space between the two panels makes them look as though they have been broken apart.

Batman's legs and Mr. Freeze's weapon are part of that angularity. Even Batman's cape is less fluid and more straight-lined than usual. That's what happens when it's this cold: everything freezes and becomes breakable. If you have ever seen an exhibition where a balloon or something soft is dipped in liquid nitrogen, you can appreciate how cold it is in these pictures. The balloon, or rose, or whatever it is, is dipped in the liquid nitrogen; it freezes, and then they tap it with with a ruler and the thing breaks into shards like glass.

Seth loved physics, and so I can be pretty sure that he had that whole idea in mind when he did this freezing page.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Seth's birthday.
These days when I think of Seth, I am hugely appreciative of what he gave me from his life.
I think I was a very ordinary mother, but he took what he was given and saw it all as beautiful and wonderful, and was grateful. He thought that everything people did, they did for his benefit, and he loved them for it. Since he didn't have to worry about whether or not people loved him (he knew they did), he used all his efforts to discover things and make beautiful and interesting things.
When he was about six years old he told me that when he grew up he wanted to be a person who discovers things. He did grow up to be such a person, though maybe not exactly in the way he thought about it as a six-year-old.

His sister Sarah posted this photo on Facebook recently, of Seth at about age 10 delightedly taunting her (~age 5) with a fish.
She thinks it's funny now; clearly she didn't think so then.

I have probably posted images before from his Father & Son Slug Album, but they are quite wonderful, and worth a second posting. I wanted to put up images that were not comic book related.

At this point Seth's birthday is for us rather than for him, a day for us to remember him and be glad that he was in our lives with his own brand of humor, his own stories, his ponderings, his efforts to bring the world into his joy.

Happy Seth's birthday to all his friends, family, and fans.
I am glad for all of you!

Thursday, July 23, 2015

To celebrate Seth's birthday I made a cake (with fresh blueberries and lemon peel, iced with whipped cream--he'd have liked it) and invited the neighbors over for cake and comic books. --a chance to introduce new people to his artwork.
When Langdon was here for Comic Con, I had talked to him about Seth's work hiding in boxes where nobody could get the pleasure of them unless they hauled the pages out and one by one lifted them up to view. Langdon suggested getting some presentation portfolio books, so that you could slip pages into them and someone could read them like a large, black & white book. I found one such portfolio at Dick Blick (ONE! The rest had sold at Comic Con.), but that was enough for two Batman issues. More are on order.

So for the neighbors last night, that portfolio of originals went out on a table, plus all the comic books, so they could see what he did. It is a great pleasure to see people go through his work (even if they don't understand just how good it truly is), and exclaim over the details, the various perspectives, the drawing of buildings, just the amount of work that went into Seth's pages. A stranger may read a comic book just for the story, but when the artist is someone you know, then you focus your attention on the artwork.

It's all I wanted: to introduce a few new people to the pleasures of Seth's artwork. His life is less easy to describe, but he put a lot of himself into his artwork, and showing it to some new people suffices.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Here it is already past Flowering Nose Day, and I just haven't had time to post anything here.
What I was afraid would happen has happened. Seth's memory has grown dimmer; the grief that attended his death has become less, and we have moved on to other things. As Robert Frost said in a poem called "Out, Out--"
"And they, since they
were not the one dead, turned to their affairs."

However. In my affairs, I never forget Seth. When he was small I taught him, and then when he grew up, he taught me. The letter I am posting below is not only the heart of what he taught me, it is, I believe, the heart of what we have proposed as the meaning of Flowering Nose Day.
And so I give it to you, dear readers who love Seth and his art, as a gift from Seth.
Here it is:

"Art is not
the end in and of itself. Your art is a reflection of the way you view life,
and if you EVER settle and decided you have arrived, then you have died. Your
art is the most important thing in your life and you must give it everything
you have every moment of you waking and sleeping life. It is only a SYMBOL. But
it is the symbol you have chosen, so if you do not honor it, everything else in
your life will reflect that. Suppose that you fall in love and suddenly you
find girlfriend asking for more of your time when you really know you need to
be drawing. If you are unable to balance these priorities, it is your life that
will suffer. Your art is only a foot print that reflects the whole of your
experience. If your art falls it is because you are struggling for a foothold
in your spirituality (or whatever label you want to put on it.) If your art succeeds
it is because you are connecting with the universe.

"STYLE. Style will come naturally, but
remember that no matter how great or accomplished you become you will never be
Seth Fisher, or Alex Ross, or Carmen Infantino...you cannot be. They are
them...you are you. They will help you, but ultimately you must accept yourself
while simultaneously never being satisfied with yourself. A paradox? Perhaps,
but understanding the self requires you to let go of the rules of logic that
you have been taught by so many misguided people. You must love yourself WITH
your faults...then you may fix them. One by one. "I see the heart in your work. But if you
want to be a professional comic artist sadly you must balance HEART with
POLISH. Polish is what you give your work that tells people, i spent enough
time on this that it proves that what i am saying is worth listening to.
Ultimately heart is what people are searching for, but they need a method for
sorting through the piles of soulless art, and most people choose to look at
the time and care and polish put into a work and use that to choose what they
will let affect them. Do not confuse polish with heart!!! Polish is the
package...heart is the contents of the box. An empty box wrapped in many bows
and ribbons is a waste of time for everyone."The size of your audience is relevant
only as it pertains to your ability to make a living. Perhaps it is too soon,
but eventually if you wish to retain your heart you must give up attachment to
the idea of fame. People will buy ANYTHING. Your popularity is not a gauge for
your worth. Seek to make work that makes people reflect on themselves. Then
eventually even that will cease to be relevant. You exist as a human being to
be a mirror for others because we (in own minds which we perceive to be
imperfect) are unable to see our own perfection. But when we look at others we
are able to see our own godliness. You will be the world’s mirror and in turn
the world will show you who you are."And you thought we were talking about ART?!?!"You are talking about your eternal soul. Do not let your art EVER cease to be
the lifeline that connects you to your humanity. If you let this passion fall
away, it will be reflected in every step that you make. You will fall away from
the path that you know exists and begin to wander. You know what you need to
become...now be it. Every step that you make is painting. Every movement that
you make is a brushstroke. YOU are the masterpiece, your comics are just the
inevitable footprints that you leave behind you. Take care in every movement
that you make in your life. Speak with every vibration of your body. The only
way to do this is total honesty. This, i think, you have naturally. DO NOT LOSE
IT!!! Wear on your chest proudly those things that you most want to hide.
People will flock to you because they are dieing to make peace with these
things themselves. Speak only with honesty.
This is very important...it will become your base if you let it."No matter how inspired you are at any moment, you will forget sometimes. You
must use your dedication to your work to remind yourself everyday of why you
are struggling. This is a vow you have taken and you should treasure it. It is
not a burden it is a gift. You will hate your desk sometimes when you see your
friends outside having fun, but this is when you will make progress.
This is a spiritual journey. And one day you will suddenly understand the
secret (that i should probably not tell you now): all this time your art work
was YOU trying to teach YOURSELF something that you already knew (and that we will
discuss when you arrive)."Gather Wisdom. "See yourself in others, especially those you deplore."Understand. "Give freely.